Please cite this paper as:
OECD/ISOC/UNESCO (2013), “The Relationship between Local Content, Internet Development and
Access Prices”, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 217, OECD Publishing.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k4c1rq2bqvk-en
OECD Digital Economy Papers No. 217
The Relationship
between Local Content, Internet Development and Access Prices
OECD, ISOC, UNESCO
OECD DIGITAL ECONOMY PAPERS
The OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (STI) undertakes a wide range of activities to better understand how information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to sustainable economic growth, social well-being and the overall shift toward knowledge-based societies.
The OECD Digital Economy Papers series covers a broad range of ICT-related issues, both technical and analytical in nature, and makes selected studies available to a wider readership. It includes policy reports, which are officially declassified by an OECD committee, and occasionally working papers, which are meant to share early knowledge and elicit feedback. This document is a working paper.
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of ISOC, the OECD or UNESCO, or their respective membership.
OECD/ISOC/UNESCO, 2013
This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.
The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ... 3
FOREWORD ... 4
MAIN FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS ... 7
INTRODUCTION ... 12
Structure of the document ... 12
SECTION 1: KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND LOCAL CONTENT ... 14
Information theory ... 14
Steps of knowledge sharing ... 15
SECTION 2: EXISTING TOOLS AND THE INTERNET SUPPORTING LOCAL CONTENT ... 18
Oral knowledge sharing ... 18
Paper/printing ... 18
Communications and Multimedia ... 19
Recording media ... 21
Personal computers ... 23
The Internet ... 23
SECTION 3: A FOCUS ON DEVELOPMENT ... 33
Infrastructure investments that can reduce costs ... 34
Local content and IXPs ... 36
A focus on competition ... 36
Policy coherence for local content, Internet development and access prices ... 36
SECTION 4: DATA AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSES ... 39
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 65
ANNEX 1: MOBILE LOCAL CONTENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE ... 69
Mobile content markets... 72
Examples of mobile content development ... 74
ANNEX 2: CASE STUDIES ... 86
Kenya ... 86
Arab Republic of Egypt ... 93
Senegal ... 99
China ... 106
Brazil ... 111
France ... 118
Republic of Korea ... 124
Endnotes………...132
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report was prepared by a team from the OECD's Information, Communications and Consumer Policy Division within the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry. The contributing authors were Chris Bruegge, Kayoko Ido, Taylor Reynolds, Cristina Serra-Vallejo, Piotr Stryszowski and Rudolf Van Der Berg.
The case studies were drafted by Laura Recuero Virto of the OECD Development Centre with editing by Elizabeth Nash and Vanda Legrandgerard.
Dorothee Georg and Ernesto Soria Morales from OECD’s Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) Unit also provided inputs on development, particularly on aspects dealing with policy coherence for development.
The work benefitted from significant guidance and constructive comments from ISOC and UNESCO.
The authors would particularly like to thank Dawit Bekele, Constance Bommelaer, Bill Graham and Michuki Mwangi from ISOC and Jānis Kārkliņš, Boyan Radoykov and Irmgarda Kasinskaite-Buddeberg from UNESCO for their work and guidance on the project.
The report relies heavily on data for many of its conclusions and the authors would like to thank Alex Kozak, Betsy Masiello and Derek Slater from Google, Geoff Huston from APNIC, Telegeography (Primetrica, Inc) and Karine Perset from the OECD for data that was used in the report.
The report was peer-reviewed by Abhimanyu Singh, Andrea Cairola, Qingyi Zeng, Min Bahadur Bista from the UNESCO Office in Beijing, Jaco Du Toit from the UNESCO Office in Windhoek.
The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of ISOC, OECD, or UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
In addition, the co-publishers (ISOC, OECD, UNESCO) have made every effort to ensure that the information contained in this publication is correct and current at the time of publication but take no responsibility of its frontiers or boundaries.
FOREWORD
In the current economic climate, with competing demands for scarce resources, policy makers are under increasing pressure to identify the priority areas and develop policy solutions that will have the highest impact. With the goal of “achieving more with less”, governments need to look at ways to make the most of limited resources.
At the same time, the world is undergoing a monumental change with regard to communication, technology and access to information which offers opportunities to maximize the effects and reach of investments. The global growth of mobile networks and the expansion of the Internet are creating a new platform that can be leveraged across the economy and throughout sectors to provide better information, enhance access, catalyse change, improve social well being, and expand economic prosperity.
But Internet access and communication networks are simply tools to achieve these larger goals. For many countries, these communication “tools” are available but not exploited to their full potential. In other countries, the basic infrastructure or capacity to facilitate communication is lacking, potentially limiting the development of an economy, region, or group.
Given the potential of technology and the Internet to contribute to social, political and economic development, it is vital for policy-makers to understand their impacts. Many governments already support network development, either through direct public investment, via the modification of universal service programmes, or by implementing mutually reinforcing policy actions across government.
The OECD has undertaken an important and ambitious research agenda to understand the impact of the Internet throughout the economy in order to provide policy-makers with evidence-based and viable solutions. As a component of this work, the OECD, UNESCO and ISOC have partnered to study the relationship between the Internet, development and cultivation of local content. This report demonstrates the significant relationship between the social objective of fostering the development of local content on the one hand, and the quantity and quality of available Internet infrastructure in a country on the other hand. Furthermore, it shows how prices and capacity influence both access and use of the available contents, and how ICT availability and dissemination can increase accountability, participation, and harness development.
This work highlights the need for greater policy coherence for development and multi-sectoral approaches across the government (“whole of government”) to address the multiple interacting dimensions of key issues. The extension of Internet access and thus local content to all parts of the population requires mutually reinforcing policy areas, such as investment, technology, education, and competition to create enabling environments for key inter-related sectors. In this way, policy coherence can be instrumental to generate comprehensive policy solutions and contribute to a sustainable and more inclusive development.
This work aligns with the OECD Strategy on Development and its overall mission to contribute to better policies for better lives. The Development Strategy, which has been endorsed during the Ministerial Council Meeting of May 2012, advocates a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to development in which policy coherence for development is a core element. It is an essential tool to ensure that the Organisation's contributions to development efforts are strengthened and respond to fast-changing global realities where countries at varying levels of development can contribute to global sustainable growth.
Building on the Organisation's multidisciplinary policy expertise and longstanding development experience, we strive to strengthen policy coherence for development, knowledge sharing and mutual learning as well as partnerships with other international organisations. This work is an important
contribution in that regard: the more we learn about the impacts of the Internet, the more important it becomes to foster affordable and robust access to all citizens in order to promote development and knowledge sharing.
This publication aims to provide policy-makers with insights into the history and the development of Internet and Internet access, introduces the reader to the cross-correlations between access, prices, local content, and policies and provides case studies that practitioners can draw on to develop and improve policies.
This publication is only a first step in creating better policies for better lives, and the OECD look forward to continued collaboration with our partners UNESCO and ISOC in finding ways to unleash the power of the Internet to the benefit of the entire world.
MAIN FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
Societies have a rich heritage and knowledge base that should be recognised, recorded and shared for the benefit of people throughout the world. Much of the world’s content remains inaccessible even to the local population, not to mention at a broader level. There are many reasons for the existence of this
“content divide”.
The content that is most important to people is typically in their own language and is relevant to the communities in which they live and work. These communities may be defined by their location, culture, language, religion, ethnicity or area of interest and individuals may belong to many communities at the same time. Further, communities evolve so what is relevant will change over time. This relevant content is often referred to as “local content”. The term community is used in a broad way to include not only local professional communities (public and private), but also non-professional content creators and users.
Technology can help support the recognition, creation, preservation, dissemination and utilisation of local content and there have been several important technological advancements in recent history.
Technological developments such as the printing press, the phonogram, telephony, radio, television, photocopying machines, recording media, mobile phones and personal computers, among others, have greatly increased our ability to create and disseminate content.
The Internet represents another historical advancement in the development and dissemination of content. It has, first and foremost, helped empower users as content creators. The Internet has provided a platform for crowd-sourced content creation and community-developed and peer-reviewed knowledge bases such as Wikipedia. It has also allowed individuals to exercise greater choice and control over the content they consume, in contrast to the limited channels of traditional broadcasting. It plays a key role in all steps from content creation to its distribution but perhaps its largest contribution is the potential it gives to creators to disseminate their content widely and nearly instantaneously at a very low cost. This creates possibilities for information creation, sharing and dissemination, and affects the way in which societies, policies, and communities interact and develop. Furthermore, it offers opportunities to help spur growth, and building capacity, as well as to exchange knowledge.
Overall, the Internet and associated technological developments call for policy actions. Policy makers around the world in ministries of culture look for ways to promote the creation and preservation of cultural heritage, including elements that are tangible, oral and intangible. At the same time, policy makers in communication ministries focus on ways to ensure that information and communication technologies and services, such as Internet access, are available and accessible to the population. This research confirms that the goals of these two important government entities are intertwined.
This empirical research shows there is a strong correlation between the development of network infrastructure and the growth of local content, even after controlling for economic and demographic factors. The statistically significant relationship is evident using several different measures of local content (the number of visible top-level domains in use per country code, per capita; Wikipedia articles per language per capita; and blogs per capita) and several measures of Internet development (broadband penetration rates, autonomous systems per capita, international bandwidth per capita and routed IPv4 addresses per capita).
In addition, this research finds a significant relationship between the development of international bandwidth and the price of local Internet access. The results indicate that more developed local Internet markets tend to report lower international prices for bandwidth and vice versa: markets with more intense international Internet traffic tend to report lower local prices for Internet access. A similar relationship was detected between the degree of development of local Internet networks and the level of international prices in developing economies. In particular, countries with a more developed local market also tend to report lower prices for international Internet connections. This relationship is not visible in developed economies that tend to have much more developed Internet infrastructure.
Policy considerations
The empirical analysis in this paper shows a strong correlation between local content, infrastructure development and access prices, but it is not able to positively determine the direction of causality due to data constraints and complex mutual dependencies. What is most likely is that these three elements are connected and feed into each other in a virtuous circle. The inter-linkages between these different elements lead to highlight four key lines of policy considerations evolving out of this research: fostering content development, expanding connectivity and promoting Internet access competition, while at the same time taking into consideration policy interlinkages between education, communication, technology, competition, trade, R&D, and others to create mutually supportive policies.
Fostering content development
There are two observable trends with respect to the local content variables that were examined for this analysis. First, local content is growing very fast in volume, often at astonishingly high rates across the different measures analysed in this study. Second, its composition is changing and local content is no longer dominated by developed countries. Various measures show that developing countries are quickly becoming important sources of content and their share of global content creation is increasing. The growth of local content varies across countries and is tied to enabling factors such as the level of Internet infrastructure development.
Creating local content, recording and distributing it benefits from a specific set of skills and tools.
Governments, especially ministries of education, should evaluate the level of multiple skills, such as ICT skills, knowledge and attitudes which would lead to the existence of a critical mass of competences at local level and take appropriate measures to create an enabling learning environment. Key steps include improving basic literacy (e.g. drafting, language, etc), critical thinking ability, as well as media, information and digital literacy skills. Policy steps to improve ICT, digital, media and information literacy should include both the formal educational system and lifelong learning. Targeted programmes aimed at certain segments of the youth and adult population can also teach necessary skills to members in a community who can then help others create, record and disseminate local content.
In addition to Internet connectivity, ICT equipment such as computers, mobile phones, cameras, scanners and audio/video recorders are important tools for digital content creators. Any trade barriers, taxes or levies that limit the development, production and importation of these devices, or increase their cost, could have a negative effect on local content creation and distribution at the local level. In some cases, ICT equipment or services are taxed heavily as they are considered luxury goods. Efforts should be made to improve policy coherence between taxation policy and ICT policy, as well as between trade policies and ICT development.
Software is an important component of digital content creation but its cost can mean that is it beyond the reach of many users. Open free online tools and materials, as well as open access to content, especially
sophisticated software, tools and services that can help in all steps of content creation. The amount of interoperability among software and media will likely be an important factor for wide-spread dissemination of content.
Some of the key components of content development are the collection, localisation and preservation of content to be disseminated. Anything that helps reduce the price of recording media for content creators and distributors can help promote the recording and dissemination of local content. Some countries have chosen to impose levies on blank media (e.g. CDs and DVDs) as a way to help compensate artists for illegal copying of their work. These levies may benefit certain content creators receiving compensation as part of a licensing collective but the blanket nature of the levies means that many other content creators outside the collective must pay more to record and distribute their original content. Governments with these levies in place may wish to re-evaluate their effectiveness and the impact of these levies on overall content creation.
Policy makers could examine the development of domestic content hosting services and look for ways to promote the development of a local content hosting as a way to reduce international transit costs and increase the speed of content storage and delivery.
Governments collect and distribute information that is both relevant to communities and local in nature and should be role models for local content creation. Previous work such as the OECD's Council Recommendation on Public Sector Information or several other normative instruments such as UNESCO’s Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace can help provide guidance. For example, policy makers should look for ways to make more public-sector information available via new media. This will increase the amount of relevant local content available and help increase demand for Internet connectivity as a way to access this newly provided content. Examples of public data projects and platforms include the data.gov.uk portal in the United Kingdom, Denmark’s www.borger.dk portal, Microsoft's Open Government Data Initiative, and Google's Public Data Explorer.
Governments should embrace the idea of openness where public sector data is deemed to be available for use free of charge unless specifically exempted for protection of national security interests, personal privacy, the preservation of private interests or where protected by copyright, or the application of national access legislation and rules. When public sector information is not provided free of charge, it should be priced in a way that is fair, that facilitates access and re-use, and ensures competition. Where possible, costs charged to any user should not exceed marginal costs of maintenance and distribution and in special cases extra costs for example of digitisation.
Governments should make public-sector information available to as much of the population as possible, including by using web accessibility standards and guidelines (W3C WAI) as well as universal design principles. This includes provisions for those with special needs, including the elderly, persons with disabilities, the vulnerable, or gender relevant or culturally specific and accurate provisions. Steps to introduce more inclusiveness will help promote the take-up of services and the potential for content creation and distribution.
Policy makers should take the necessary steps to foster an innovative environment for content creation. Creative ecosystems often evolve around educational institutions and areas with inexpensive connectivity.
Expanding connectivity
The findings of the research highlight the significant relationship between infrastructure development and local content creation. There are a number of steps policy makers can take to improve connectivity and support the development and dissemination of local content. In certain cases this may require a renewed focus on policy coherence for development to ensure that promoting the growth of a national firm in a developed country is not tied to maintaining monopoly power in another.
Mobile networks are the most prevalent Internet platform in the world, and are often the main telecommunication networks in developing countries. Efficient spectrum policy will be an important tool to help improve communications capacity and create a platform for local content development. Policy makers could re-examine their existing allocations and look for spectrum that could be available to the market, particularly as the value of certain frequency bands is growing as a result of more mobile broadband usage.
An important area for focus is international Internet connectivity. This research finds that broadband prices are lower in countries that have more international Internet connectivity, even after controlling for other demographic factors. Governments should look at existing international capacity conditions and consider ways to increase international capacity into their country. Steps that lower the costs and barriers of delivering international bandwidth are particularly important.
International bandwidth is both a mechanism for delivering local content out to the world and a means of making global knowledge available on a local level. The characteristics of local content, however, mean that much of the content that is created and distributed is domestic in nature and should be distributed locally without paying for expensive international data transit. The development of local Internet exchanges can promote the local distribution of content in a cost-effective way. Previous research shows that, when allowed to do so, market participants will self-organise efficient Internet exchange points, producing Internet bandwidth to the benefit of the economy. Governments should take necessary steps to promote the development of local Internet exchanges as a way to minimise distribution costs.
Policy makers may need to evaluate the impact of network rollouts on areas connected to new telecommunication networks and those which may be bypassed or underserved. In some cases the marginal cost of extending a backhaul connection to an additional community could be much lower than the benefit it could potentially provide. Any government investment in road construction or electrification should consider installing the infrastructure for fibre-optic networks at the same time to save on the significant digging costs. These backhaul networks can support both fixed and mobile Internet connectivity over the last kilometre.
Promoting competition
Policy makers should focus on improving competition because this lowers prices in markets and lower prices are correlated with more developed Internet infrastructure. The following steps focus on ways to promote competition in markets with a goal of promoting Internet growth and local content development.
Internet connectivity is expanding in almost all countries around the world. Many countries have been able to reduce the digital divide but the divide can also widen in areas with a lack of competition or those without regulatory liberalisation as well as due to existing discrepancies between rural and urban areas.
First, research has shown that liberalisation of telecommunication markets has generally led to better
services. The progress of effective liberalisation should continue, particularly in countries that still maintain a monopoly incumbent fixed-line provider. Competition and efficiency should be introduced into markets as a way to increase Internet adoption and help foster the creation and dissemination of locally- produced content.
Government policy should look to reduce barriers to entry in telecommunications, and the supply of Internet access in particular, as a way to promote competition. Complex licensing requirements, foreign direct investment restrictions and other barriers to entry will tend to limit competition and increase the prices that consumers and businesses pay for Internet access.
One of the key areas where governments can improve competition is via spectrum allocations.
Countries with more mobile operators in a competitive market typically have lower prices than those with fewer options. Governments can help promote the rollout of multiple Internet-capable mobile networks throughout their countries.
Some governments have used telecommunication monopolies or taxes on telecommunication markets as a key source of government funding but this research highlights that there could be significant costs to that approach related to the development of local content and culture. Unnecessary taxes on telecommunication services reduce adoption, particularly if the collected revenues are not reinvested in network development. Policy makers should minimise the prices that people pay for Internet access as a way to stimulate uptake and promote the development of local content. As the Internet becomes an important foundation of the economy, further research could look at the impact of various taxation schemes surrounding telecommunications on economic growth.
Policy makers in many countries, including most OECD countries have mandated infrastructure sharing of the incumbent’s telecommunication lines as a way to foster Internet competition. Infrastructure sharing can be an effective way to improve competition, either on existing networks or as a way to mutualise the cost of new network rollouts, provided it is done in a way that does not discourage network investment.
Considering policy interlinkages
The concept of policy coherence for development (PCD) aims to exploit positive synergies and spillovers across public policies, ministries, and actors to foster development. PCD goes well beyond minimising the adverse impact that public policies can have in developing countries; it entails the systematic application of mutually reinforcing policies and integration of development concerns across government departments to achieve development goals along with national policy objectives (OECD 2011).
Internet and local content development are closely interlinked with other public sectors such as education, infrastructure, competition, and governance. Ensuring that policies in these sectors are mutually supportive can maximise their potential for development and their positive impact.
INTRODUCTION
The Internet benefits both developing and developed countries alike as an increasingly important communication medium and as a repository and distribution system for knowledge and culture.
This research will examine the relationship between Internet infrastructure, Internet prices and the development of local content. One of the key questions this work will examine is how policy decisions and coherence can help foster the development of content and Internet connectivity.
This project pulls together three distinct organisations, each with a different focus, to examine the relationship between the level of Internet infrastructure and the development of local content and culture.
The three entities are the Internet Society (ISOC), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
ISOC is a non-profit organisation founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet-related standards, education and policy. The organisation is dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. ISOC brings the important technical expertise to the project and knowledge surrounding Internet information and education.
The OECD is an international organisation of 34 member countries that promotes policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. It produces economic and social data that is internationally comparable for analysis. The OECD’s key contribution as an economic organisation will be on the country research and the empirical testing of the relationships.
UNESCO is a United Nations organisation with 195 member states and 8 associate members.
UNESCO’s mission is to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information. Some of the key themes of UNESCO’s work in relation to communication and information are access to knowledge, free flow of information, freedom of expression, including freedom of press, and media development. In this sense, UNESCO promotes the free flow of ideas by word and image and is also tasked with maintaining, increasing and spreading knowledge.1 This project benefits from UNESCO’s lead and expertise in matters related to content, culture and expression.
Structure of the document
Technology plays an important role in organising, recording and disseminating local content. The first section in the paper will look at information theory, knowledge-sharing and the role of the internet in the latter. The second section will examine existing tools for organising, recording and distributing information over time, including how the Internet has become an important tool for helping to create, store and distribute local content. The third section will analyse how development and competition play into access prices, the development of local content and the internet sphere of a country. Policy coherence for development and the impact of different policy areas on ICT will also be elaborated upon. The paper then concludes with a section that examines the empirical relationship between measures of local content, Internet infrastructure development and access prices. The section looks at various measures and proxies to develop an analytical framework for testing the relationship between them.
There are two annexes to the paper. The first looks at local content and the mobile phone. The mobile phone is the most common interface for Internet connectivity in many countries – both developing and
developed so one section is devoted to content that is available over mobile phone networks. It also provides examples of how local content is being used in different countries over mobile networks.
The second annex is comprised of case studies from seven different countries related to Internet infrastructure, development and local content. This section provides case studies from Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Kenya, the Republic of Korea and Senegal and offers insights into good-practices, regulations, and development issues.
SECTION 1: KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND LOCAL CONTENT
Information theory
Individuals are mainly concerned with information that is relevant to them. There is a new flood of information available via information and communication technologies (ICTs) but the amount of data that is directly relevant to a given population may be relatively small. A key policy goal, therefore, is promoting the development of relevant content and ensuring that it is available to people in a format and language that applies to them. The dissemination of information among the population is often referred to as information and knowledge sharing.
Knowledge sharing plays a key role in helping respect universality, indivisibility and the interdependence of human rights, and in particular, the freedom of expression and access to information.
Knowledge sharing also helps achieve the goal of an education for all, information for all and the benefits that come from a diversity of cultures and identities.
But for knowledge sharing to be effective, it needs to be relevant and accessible to all people. In many cases, there are populations and communities that do not have access to certain types of knowledge due to language, cultural, economic, disabilities, literacy or other barriers.
There may be cases where relevant information exists but not in a language that is accessible. In other cases, illiteracy poses a significant problem for transmitting knowledge. According to a recent UNESCO report, about 17% of the world’s adults – 796 million people – still lack basic literacy skills. Nearly two- thirds are women (UNESCO, 2011). World Bank data on adult literacy rates in Figure 1 show that only 71% of countries have reached a literacy rate of 80% per 100 inhabitants. Only half of the population can read in 5% of countries. Some policy makers understand the importance of knowledge sharing in economic and social development and therefore look for strategies to eliminate illiteracy and ensure relevant information is available to their populations in an accessible manner.
Figure 1. Percentage of countries attaining a certain adult literacy rate
Note: Adult literacy rates are rounded to the nearest 10 and include the latest figures available for each country between 2000 and 2010.
Source: World Bank.
100% 98% 95% 91%
81%
69%
61%
30%
30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Literacy rate (%)
This idea of relevant content in the speaker’s own language is called local content. The subset of information that is relevant to an individual is often closely related to knowledge within any of the communities where she or he resides. UNESCO has defined “local content” as an expression and communication of a community’s locally generated, owned and adapted knowledge and experience that is relevant to the community’s situation (UNESCO, 2001).
These communities are defined by their location, culture, language or area of interest. Some of the ties that bind a community are strong cultural, linguistic, religious or common-interest ties. Communities need not be confined to one geographic area as members may share the same location or may be geographically dispersed. Communities are not static or exclusive and evolve over time. Individuals may also belong to many communities at the same time. Therefore, much of the information that is relevant to an individual will depend on the different communities to which he or she belongs. As a result, policy makers are interested in better understanding the dynamics of these communities and how local knowledge and content is created, preserved, distributed and used (see Figure 2).
Steps of knowledge sharing
There are four key steps in the development and dissemination of local content. They are creation, preservation, dissemination and utilisation.
Figure 2. Steps of local content/knowledge sharing
Source: OECD adapted from UNESCO
Creation
The talent to create local content exists in all communities throughout the world. The primary challenge is harnessing the talent and knowledge and developing it into a form that can be shared and used.
In many ways, creating content has become easier as technology has improved.
The whole field of graphic design and typesetting, for example, has changed with the introduction of computer hardware and software specific for the tasks. Content creators also have access to a much wider array of information and content to build upon than ever before. The development of multimedia tools such as video cameras and their significant price declines in nominal and real terms have helped increase the creation of local content, particularly by non-professional content creators - users.
Preservation
Much of the content produced in the world is never recorded in a way that it can be shared or reproduced. As an example, early television broadcast signals were sent out live and rarely recorded on film until video tape recording technology emerged. The valuable content was produced but not recorded in a way that could benefit others after the original airing. Oral histories in many cultures are of particular significance yet they may be lost over time.
There is significant scope to preserve more locally produced content throughout the world.
Technologies such as video cameras, audio recording equipment and hard drives have made it much more cost effective to preserve local content in a way that it can eventually be recalled and shared. The cost of
preserving information, on a per byte basis, has been decreasing rapidly. Since the development of the first disk drive in 1956, the density of information that can be recorded on a square inch of a disk (6.45 cm2) has grown from 2 thousand to over 100 billion bits in 2005, a 50 million-fold increase. This is roughly equivalent to the capacity doubling every year.2 (See Figure 3)
Figure 3. Exponential increase in hard disk storage capacity
Source: Wikipedia, based on Kyrders Law. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.svg#.
Dissemination/distribution
Once local content is produced and preserved it needs to be distributed in a way that can benefit as many people as possible. In the past, distribution was limited typically to the local community because of the high costs and barriers to efficient distribution. Printing books required large up-front investments that limited the types of information that could be efficiently shared via bound books. Books and many other knowledge and “content goods” were originally also characterised as being rival goods – that is that the use by one person would limit access by a second person since only one person could read a book, a magazine or a newspaper at a time.
Technological advancements have significantly changed distribution models and shifted many content and knowledge products into the category of non-rival goods – where the use by one person does not limit the use by another. Television, radio and other broadcast media opened up distribution channels to a much wider audience by introducing a one-to-many distribution model but the tools to create content and the frequencies and equipment needed to broadcast it were limited and expensive. Broadcast technologies were still limited to a relatively small geographic footprint.
The Internet arguably has had its largest impact on distribution. Information put on the Internet is immediately available to a global audience of Internet users. Certain alternative intellectual property management solutions (e.g. the Creative Commons licensing schemes) provide new opportunities to share content with the public.
Utilisation
Local knowledge and content is of limited benefit if people do not access and use the information that has been created and recorded. Technological developments have helped greatly with the creation, preservation and distribution of local content but these advancements also require equipment and skills on the part of users if they are to take advantage of them. Users who want access to local content on the Internet need some form of Internet access. In many cases, vast amounts of relevant information are available on the Internet but users may find it difficult to sift through all the information that is available and find the relevant bits. The key challenges that governments face are twofold; promoting the creation of local content and making it accessible.
SECTION 2: EXISTING TOOLS AND THE INTERNET SUPPORTING LOCAL CONTENT
Knowledge sharing requires tools and skills to be efficient. These tools have evolved over time as local content has been created, recorded and distributed for centuries but there have been a number of key technological leaps that have had a large impact on information sharing. Figure 4 provides a breakdown of how various tools fit into the stages of local content development and knowledge sharing. Some of the tools fit under multiple headings. The list is not intended to be exhaustive but rather to show the types of tools that feed into content creation and dissemination.
Figure 4. Examples of tools involved in various steps of knowledge sharing
Source: OECD
Oral knowledge sharing
Traditional knowledge sharing has been, and in some parts of the world still is, passed on orally for next generations, from person to person in local languages. The traditional knowledge represents cultural and social values and the collective memory of a specific community.
In some cases, the oral traditional knowledge or oral local content is limited to particular social groups or is highly specialised or specific according to occupation and cultural realities. In addition, the maintenance of oral traditional knowledge in the everyday life of society is limited in some parts of the world. Communities, researchers and institutions may use information technology in order to safeguard, maintain and disseminate oral traditional knowledge. Unique expressive features, such as intonation and a much larger number of varying styles, can now be recorded as audio or video, as can interactions between performers and audiences and non-verbal story elements including gestures and mimicry. Mass media and information and communication technologies can be used to preserve and even strengthen oral traditions and expressions by broadcasting recorded performances both to their communities of origin and to a wider audience.
Paper/printing
The development of Gutenberg’s printing press and moveable type in the 15th century marked the beginning of the truly broad distribution of information by creating a much more efficient method for recording and disseminating information in printed form. In the 1470’s, an Italian bishop explained that
Creation Preservation Dissemination Utilisation
-Oral creation -Pen/pencil -Computers -Software -Cameras -Mobile phones -Internet (applications)
-Paper/printing -Recording devices -Magnetic tape -Hard drives -Internet (storage)
-Oral dissemination -Paper/printing -Photocopier -Telephony -Broadcasting -Internet (hosting)
-Computers -Mobile phones -Televisions -Radios -Education -Internet (access)
three printers working for three months could produce 300 copies of a single book. For comparison, the bishop stated that it would have taken three scribes a lifetime each to complete the same number (Norman, 2005).
Despite the dramatic productivity increases, the work of Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin shows that the early print runs of books were not large quantities by today’s standards. Norman (2005) cites Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin’s data showing that early books had print runs of between 100 and 300 copies. In exceptional circumstances the number could be as high as 1 000. These numbers help illustrate that even though the development of the printing press was an incredible leap for the recording and dissemination of content, its reach was somewhat limited by the logistical challenges of sharing a limited amount of printed material. Over the years, printing large volumes has become much more efficient.
Photocopier
The printing press allowed publishers to reproduce large amounts of material in written form but it was a more recent technology, the photocopier that essentially brought the benefits of inexpensive reproduction of text and pictures to the world. Haloid introduced a new technology for “dry copying” in 1960 and within a short period of time, the technology had become so prevalent throughout the world that its name “Xerox” was used both as a noun and verb meaning, “to photocopy” (Chakravorti, 2003).
The photocopy machine has been an important tool for business but also to those wishing to spread information quickly and efficiently. In a well-known example, The Soros Foundation donated 400 photocopiers to Hungarian libraries, universities and scientific institutes as a way to foster free expression and disseminate ideas in the early 1980’s3 (Slater, 2009). The photocopier has also been a staple technology for businesses, schools, governments and others over the past 50 years. The importance of the technology is underlined as these groups continue to use them and have been slow to shift to the idea of fully digital offices.
Printing and photocopying are largely technologies for a literate population and much of the world’s information has traditionally been communicated using voice.
Communications and multimedia
Advancements in communications and multimedia during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries have played a significant role improving access to communication and the dissemination of information. It is difficult to select technologies to highlight but there are still several that stand out.
Telephony
One of the most important recent developments in terms of information and knowledge sharing has been the development of telephony. Beginning with the invention of the telegraph and the fixed-line telephone in the mid-to-late 1800's, people were able to communicate information over long distances using their voice or encoded text. This was a marked change from using written communication for large amounts of information that needed to be transmitted long distances. Telephony helped address the issue of distance for disseminating information but it was largely limited to a one-to-one communication structure.
Fixed lined telephony has grown to become one of the most important communication media and has served as a foundation for Internet connectivity in many countries.
Wireless/mobile
Wireless radio technology evolved through the 1800's with Hertz's measurement of electromagnetic waves and important developments in radio technology by Marconi (Luenberger, 2006). The technology evolved to become the foundation of radio/television and mobile telephony.
Mobile phones have become one of the most available communication tools in the entire world.
Growing from less than 1 million subscribers in 1985, the number of mobile subscribers reached nearly 6 billion in 2011 (see Figure 5). This amazing growth and penetration throughout the world has made voice communications available to almost every community in the world.
Figure 5. Growth of telephony as a communication tool Subscriptions from 1960 – 2011, in millions, worldwide
Source: OECD adapted from the ITU, April 2012.
Radio/television
Radio and television are two of the most important media for distributing local content. The geographical reach of both radio and television are often similar to the boundaries of geographic-based communities. They are an ideal means for sending the same information to a large number of people at the same time. Both technologies require the user to have equipment to receive and decode the signals but both technologies have become nearly ubiquitous throughout the world as the price of equipment has dropped.
Radio and television remain the primary source of information in some parts of the world.
The one-to-many distribution nature of television and radio also has some drawbacks. Broadcasters require spectrum to operate using free-to-air signals but there are a limited number of frequencies that can be made available in any given market. This means that although television and radio are very good at distributing information, the number of available frequencies limits the number of "voices" and plurality of content.
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011
Mobile cellular telephone subscriptions (post- paid + prepaid)
Fixed telephone lines
Recording media
Key technological advances such as broadcast radio and television allowed people the tools to widely distribute content. It was the invention of recording media, however, that opened new possibilities for preserving large amounts of content for later use.
Phonogram/phonograph
The 19th century marked a significant change in the preservation of information with the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877 that was capable of recording and replaying sound waves. The phonograph was fully acoustic (not electronic) until the 1920s when the introduction of electricity greatly increased the fidelity of the sound recording. At the time, the maximum recording time was limited to roughly 4.5 minutes (Randel, 2003).
Magnetic tape
The phonograph ushered in the ability to record sound but it was magnetic recording tape that made it much more cost effective and versatile. Television was a key technology for broadcasting local information but the ability to efficiently record the transmission came later with the invention of videotape recorders.
The first videotape recorder was developed in 1951 by engineers at Bing Crosby Laboratories. The technology was improved and marketed by two Japanese firms, Sony (Beta) and Matsushita (VHS) in the 1960s and 1970s (Carlisle, 2004).
The development of audio and video tape recorders, and their distribution to consumers changed the way people gathered and stored multimedia content. What used to be recorded on film could now be saved onto magnetic tape that could be used over and over at very low cost. Videotape became a key distribution method for commercial firms but was increasingly used by consumers in households to record events. As the price of video cameras and tape declined, the ability to produce, record and distribute video content expanded.
The invention of magnetic tape for preserving multimedia content has been a key component of content retention across the world. It provided a mechanism for content creators to record vast amounts of multimedia information for future use and distribution.
Hard drives
In 1956, IBM introduced the first disk drive, its Model 350 Disk Storage Unit. Up to that point computer data was typically stored on punch cards. The early disk drive could store 100 000 characters, or roughly 100 kilobytes (Hutchinson, 2009). As mentioned earlier, the capacity of hard disks have nearly doubled every year over the past 50 years. Hard drives have been one of the key foundations of the computing revolution.
As capacities grow, so does the potential for recording local and cultural content. The prices of hard-drive storage capacity have fallen to the point that storage capacity is affordable for a large component of the world's population. In August 2011, it was possible to purchase 2 terabytes of internal disk storage for USD 70. That works out to USD 35 per terabyte or USD 0.035 per megabyte. To put that in perspective, USD 0.01 can now purchase 285 000 times as much capacity as was available on the earliest disk drive, the Model 350.
The price of storing data has fallen dramatically, not just for hard drives but for many storage media.
One US dollar will now buy roughly 29 gigabytes of storage on a magnetic hard drive (see Figure 6).
DVDs also provide very cost effective storage at roughly 24 gigabytes of storage for USD 1. CDs are less
cost effective but retail prices in 2011 indicate that USD 1 will still buy enough capacity to store 4.4 gigabytes of data.
Figure 6 also shows how much data can be stored for one year on Amazon's cloud storage platform (S3). One US dollar would purchase roughly 600 megabytes of storage for an entire year.
Figure 6. Number of gigabytes of data that can be stored for USD 1 By various recording media (hard drives, DVD, CD) and Internet storage (S3)
Notes: Hard drive storage calculations: 2 TB internal hard drive for USD 70.00 DVD price calculations: 500 DVD-R with 4.7 GB of storage each for USD 99.50 CD price calculations: 100 CD-R with 700 MB of storage each for USD 15.99
Amazon S3 pricing: Online storage for USD 0.14 per GB per month, http://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/
Recording media are mechanisms for preserving digital content and Table 1 highlights the affordability of media by examining how many files of various types can be saved for the equivalent of USD 1. The table is broken down into categories of audio, video, text, photos and games that represent a significant component of local content. The four different storage options that are compared are the hard drives (internal), DVDs, CDs, and online storage via Amazon's S3 platform.
There is a significant amount of content that can be stored for the equivalent of USD 1. A consumer- grade hard drive can store over 7 000 songs consisting of 4 minutes of music or nearly 70 000 photos (1 megapixel, JPG compression). That same USD 1-worth of hard drive capacity could hold 29 000 text files, each containing 250 pages of text.
The falling prices for storage capacity are also opening possibilities for sharing information with those who may not be able to read. USD 1 worth of a hard drive could hold 260 audio books, each 9 hours long.
Finally, the same capacity could be used to store 952 videos of 5 minutes each.
Table 1 also compares the price of store information online using Amazon's S3 cloud service. One dollar will buy less capacity online but the difference is the content is available on a global basis. One US dollar worth of Amazon's cloud service could either store 149 songs, 198 eBooks, or 1,400 photos for one year.
Recording media has come down sufficiently in price that it is no longer a significant barrier to
28.6
23.6
4.4
0.6 0.0
5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0
Hard drive DVD CD Amazon S3
(1 year) Gigabytes
Table 1. How many files of various types can be stored for USD 1
How many files of a particular type can be saved for USD 1 of storage
Hard drive
DVD CD Amazon
S3 (1 year)
File size (MB)
Audio 4-minute song (iTunes) 7 143 5 905 1 094 149 4
9-hour audiobook (iTunes) 260 215 40 5 110
Video 5-minute video (iTunes) 952 787 146 20 30
45 minute TV show (iTunes) 143 118 22 3 200
45 minute HDTV show (iTunes) 48 39 7 1 600
2 hour movie (iTunes) 19 16 3 0.4 1 500
2 hour HD movie (iTunes) 6 5 1.0 0.1 4 500
Text Text file (250 pages, single spaced) 28 571 23 618 4 378 595 1
E-Book (epub, Bookworm) 9 524 7 873 1 459 198 3
Photos Photo (1 megapixel, JPG100) 68 681 56 774 10 523 1 431 0.416
Photo (5 megapixels, JPG100) 20 408 16 870 3 127 425 1.4
Photo (1 megapixel, RAW12) 19 048 15 745 2 918 397 1.5
Photo (12 megapixels, JPG100) 11 429 9 447 1 751 238 2.5
Photo (5 megapixels, RAW12) 3 810 3 149 584 79 7.5
Photo (12 megapixels, RAW12) 1 587 1 312 243 33 18
Games iPod game (iTunes) 714 590 109 15 40
Notes: Hard drive storage calculations: 2 TB internal hard drive for USD 70.00 DVD price calculations: 500 DVD-R at 4.7 GB of storage each for USD 99.50 CD price calculations: 100 CD-R at 700 MB of storage each for USD 15.99
Amazon S3 pricing: 1 TB per month of storage for USD 0.14 per GB per month, http://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/
Sources: iTunes file sizes: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1577
E-book sizes: http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/16/how-big-is-the-average-epub-book/
Photo sizes: http://web.forret.com/tools/megapixel_aspect.asp?mp=1
Personal computers
Computers, whether they are a personal computer or a mobile phone, are a key component of content creation and dissemination. Ever since the introduction of computers, people have been using them to create content. Computers gave people a general-purpose machine that they could use to create a nearly limitless array of media that could be transformed quickly and efficiently.
Computers quickly became an important platform for not just creating content but also for consuming it. Users could create content on a computer for distribution to other computers or they could easily export the content onto other media.
From the very early days of computers, people have been connecting them together as a way to share resources. These networks of computers could be within a business or across a campus but the goal was the same. The network allowed users to share resources and the Internet brought together these small networks and interconnected them.
The Internet
The Internet holds a special role in content creation, similar to the role of the computer. As Figure 4 highlighted, the Internet is a general purpose technology that supports all four steps of content creation and
knowledge sharing. The importance of the Internet in each of the four outlined steps lays the theoretical foundation for the assumed relationship between the level of Internet infrastructure development and local content.
Step 1: The Internet supporting creation
The Internet serves as a vast repository for information that can be used to support content collection and creation. One of the important ways in which the Internet supports content development is via tools that support collaboration. The Internet allows content creators to communicate and exchange ideas using platforms such as social networking sites, video conferencing, and instant messaging sites.
The Internet also delivers free tools for content creation that were previously provided as software for users to purchase. The high price of creative software often made it inaccessible to many users. Free open- source versions of software are now available for download over the Internet. One of the key developments, however, is that the software itself is now hosted on the Internet, requiring users to only have a very basic terminal, such as a mobile phone, to access it. Examples of free online office suites include FreeOffice online (www.thinkfree.com) and Google Docs (docs.google.com). Both online services include access to word processing software, spreadsheets and presentation software.
The Internet is also becoming a key source for creation tools in other creative areas as well. For example, music editing software is available online from sites such as JamStudio.com which provide artists the ability to create and record music without access to physical instruments (see Box 1).
Box 1. Creating music online
JamStudio.com is one of many websites that allow users to create music online without the need for physical instruments. Jam Studio created a database of 100 000 recordings of instruments (loops) that can be assembled and mixed together to create music. Users can select a range of instruments and create music and then record vocals over the top.
One of the benefits of sites such as Jam Studio are that they open up the possibility of music creation to those who may not have access to instruments or have the training to play.
Source: JamStudio.com
The tools for creating content and posting it on the Internet have greatly improved over time. In the past, web site creators needed to know markup-languagues such as HTML to build a simple webpage but now free tools are available as software applications that can automatically perform much more complex
Step 2: The Internet supporting preservation
The Internet has become an important repository for content. For example, there are a number of services that focus on providing online storage capacity to users. Services such as Dropbox (www.dropbox.com), SugarSync (www.sugarsync.com) and SkyDrive (skydrive.live.com) provide a certain amount of online storage space for free, typically between 2 GB to 5 GB. Users can upload digital content to the sites and access the information via a range of terminals (e.g. phones, computers). Users that need more space can purchase it for between USD 0.10 – USD 0.20 per GB of data stored per month.4
The 2 GB of storage space offered on the free services is enough to hold 500 songs (4 minutes each) or 18 audio books (9 hours of audio) or 67 videos (5 minutes) or more than 600 eBooks. Often these services are marketed as online backup and sharing services meaning they assume that the user maintains a copy of another type of media such as a computer hard drive.
Figure 7. Flickr geotagged pictures within an economy, per 1 000 inhabitants
Source: Bruegge (2011)
The Internet has become one of the largest sources for photographs. An interesting example of the Internet helping preserve local content is the ability to assign geographic marker (called a geo-tag) to photographs that are posted on the Internet. Photo sharing sites such as Flickr provide storage space to users where they can upload, store and share photos. When a user uploads a photo onto the platform they can provide a geo-location marker that assigns the picture to a specific location. This creates a repository of photographs from a particular area that are available and searchable online. The number of geotagged photos per 1 000 inhabitants varies across economies but Monaco, Iceland and the Cayman islands – all popular tourist destinations – top the list (see Figure 7).
0 400 800 1200 1600 2000
LUXEMBOURG NETHERLANDS NORWAY CANADA MACAO UNITED STATES FRENCH POLYNESIA BELIZE SWITZERLAND LIECHTENSTEIN MALTA SEYCHELLES SAN MARINO ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA IRELAND NEW ZEALAND MALDIVES UNITED KINGDOM ARUBA GEORGIA ANDORRA FAROE ISLANDS BAHAMAS NETHERLANDS ANTILLES GREENLAND BERMUDA ISLE OF MAN CAYMAN ISLANDS ICELAND MONACO
There are benefits to using these services but there are challenges for users as well. First, these online storage services require an Internet connection to access the files. If Internet connectivity goes down, users may lose access. Second, Internet business models are changing and services may come and go. Services such as Dmailer provided online storage but then closed, forcing users to find a new storage solution.
Third, most of the sites offering online storage are available in English or a relatively limited number of languages. Setting up an account and installing the system would require a certain level of ability in a supported language. Finally, additional storage space is available for a fee but it may not be possible to buy additional storage if users do not have access to certain forms of payment (e.g. credit cards).
Step 3: The Internet supporting dissemination/distribution
The distinction between steps two and three (preservation and dissemination) is ambiguous because services that provide storage (preservation) on the Internet also provide dissemination mechanisms. Many distribution platforms allow users to upload information for dissemination on the Internet. Examples include blogging sites such as Wordpress and Blogger, photo sites such as Flickr and Picasa, and video hosting sites such as YouTube and DailyMotion.
Ten years ago, the key way to publish information online was to create a website, which required users to have a certain skill level and to pay for online hosting via a hosting provider. The Internet model has evolved now to where the largest content hosting providers allow users to create sites and host their content on the web for free on a proprietary platform that is often supported via advertising.
One of the most basic and effective ways to publish content and distribute it on the Internet is via a blog. A blog is a web page that records content updates in descending chronological order. Blog users can easily upload text, pictures, and video onto the Internet and into a blog. Blogs are free to set up from various providers and are available in a significant amount of languages. Google's Blogger service is available in 49 languages.5 Blogs are often thematic or follow the activities of an individual or group.
The total number of blogs indexed by Google has been decreasing since 2008 when it reached its peak (see Figure 8) but this is primarily due to a sharp decline in the number of English-language blogs in the listings. The number of blogs indexed in other languages continues to grow across different languages both for the top ten (see Figure 9) and bottom ten (see Figure 10) languages indexed.
